


A Kind of Magic

by thepurplewombat



Category: Captain America (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AND THEY WILL FUCKING GET THEM IF IT'S THE LAST THING I DO, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Cruciatus flashbacks, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, HYDRA used magic, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hermione Granger Needs a Hug, Hermione Granger: Tiny Badass, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Severus Snape Lives, Severus Snape Needs a Hug, Severus Snape is kind of a dick, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Is a Good Bro, Widow Hermione Granger (as in Black Widow not dead-husband), Winter Soldier Trauma Umbrella, but bear with me, but we like that about him, by our canons combined, curse scars, everyone has PTSD, everyone is a former Soviet spy, fuck that movie anyway, had to do some timeline fuckery, including Snape, liberal applications of handwavium to the timelines, takes place after ca:tws, this is an Endgame protest fic, we are Harry Potter/Avengers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 09:10:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19128955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepurplewombat/pseuds/thepurplewombat
Summary: In which Bucky Barnes has a Thing in his head, and would like it taken out, HYDRA were a bunch of assholes who played with forces mortal man should not wot of, and Severus Snape has fucked up bigtime.But that's okay, because Natasha Romanov is going to get them all to sort their shit out if it's the last thing they do.





	A Kind of Magic

**Author's Note:**

> okay so obviously there had to be some timeline-related fuckery to make all of this work. Not actual time-travel but there has been liberal applications of handwavium to the time-streams in order to create this fic.
> 
> basically for the purposes of this story we're moving the Harry Potter series mumblesome years into the future, and the Avengers series mumblesome years into the past. Deathly Hallows took place around the time that Steve was defrosted, and it is now, let's call it three years post-VW, and let's say eighteen months post-WS.
> 
> Nothing after Captain America: The Winter Soldier is canon for the purposes of this story, and the Harry Potter Epilogue never happened. Steve put on his big-girl panties and told Tony about his parents before he even met Bucky (but after showing him the Winter Soldier file to show him what had been done to him). Severus Snape survived Nagini and fucked off to a hidden wizarding island off the coast of Greece. So that's the state of canon divergence at the moment, although the deeper backstory will come clear as the story progresses.

“Well,” Tony said, taking a step back from the hologram, “that’s…a fun and interesting new thing. By which I mean, what the everloving merciful _fuck_ is that?”

Steve would have really liked to have an answer for him, especially considering that the hologram was _Bucky’s goddamn brain_ which apparently had some kind of _thing_ in it. Unfortunately he didn’t, and there was definitely a thing. In Bucky’s brain.

The worst part was that they’d thought everything was fine. More or less, for a given value of ‘fine’ which, Steve was fully aware - _thank you very fucking much Sam-_ did not have a one-to-one relationship with the concept of ‘fine’ as embraced by the rest of the human race. But still. Fine. Bucky had arrived at the Tower one day and asked to see Steve and it had been…fine. Good, even, despite the screaming nightmares and the general aura of twitchiness. And the knives. Let’s not forget the knives. Steve wished that he could forget the knives, especially the one in the couch that had become a bit more intimately acquainted with his ass than he liked sharp things to be but, alas, he probably never would.

Bucky’s memories were coming back, he was eating like a person, Pepper had even bullied him into learning to bake. He wasn’t the Bucky of before, but Steve wasn’t the Steve of before either, and it was beginning to seem like some of Bucky’s rough edges matched Steve’s broken parts, so it was. Fine. Some days Bucky couldn’t bear even the lightest touch and wore so many layers he was basically spherical, and some days it seemed like he was trying to make up for seventy years of skin hunger in one go and decided that clothes are a tool of the capitalist elite. So at least life was never boring.

And then that fucking HYDRA goon had managed to get into the tower and said a couple of words and Bucky had gone fucking _berserk_ and now there was a _thing_.

A thing that looked like the bastard offspring of a snake and an octopus, winding around Bucky’s brain like the world’s most horrifying Christmas lights. The skull that looked like it was biting the snaketopus was really overkill, in Steve’s professional opinion. And it hadn’t been there during the initial scans Tony had done when Bucky had shown up. They would definitely have noticed.

“What do you think, T-1000?” Tony asked. “Look familiar?”

Bucky was opening his mouth when there was a clatter at the door to Tony’s lab and they turned to find Natasha, looking as horrified as Steve had ever seen her, staring at the hologram like she expected it to bite her or something.

“Nat?” Steve asked, and she sucked in a deep breath and tore her eyes away from the hologram to look at him. “Do you know what that is?”

“I-“ she stopped, licked her lips, and glanced back at the hologram before continuing. “I think I might. If…if I’m right, I might know someone who can fix it.”

“Well?” Tony demanded will all the tact and patience of a three-year-old on a sugar high. “What do you think it is, Mother Russia?”

“It’s a spell construct, Tony,” she said, her eyes locked on the hologram as she drifted closer. “It’s – you’re not supposed to be able to even _see_ it, I was told that this kind of magic just completely fucks up technology.”

“A spell construct,” Bucky said carefully, and wedged himself in under Steve’s arm like they could merge into a single entity if only he cuddled hard enough. “What for?”

“I’m not sure,” Nat said carefully. “But looking at the results-“

“Somehow I don’t think that HYDRA would deliberately implant something that would make Bucky kill _anyone_ in the vicinity,” Steve said, trying not to think of what had remained of the HYDRA scientist who had triggered the spell. Apparently there were spells now. Wonderful. “So…”

“We need to go to England,” Nat said. Fifteen minutes later they were in the quinjet, heading for the green shores of England. When you had your own virtually undetectable private jet, visas were things that happened to other people. Steve honestly couldn’t say he minded. Not when Bucky had had to stop in their quarters for another hoodie and had gone back to his attempts to achieve oneness with Steve’s torso.

It wasn’t that Steve minded the cuddling. He’d cuddle Bucky every damn day if he needed it, let Bucky use him as a pillow or a blanket or a guard or a weapon – anything he could do or give or say was Bucky’s for the asking. And besides which, it was as though the contact soothed something inside Steve too, some wild animal part of him that wanted to take Bucky and hide him in some deep safe place where nobody could ever find or hurt either of them again. Reminded him that Bucky was here, with him, and that whatever happened next they would face it together. So no, the cuddling didn’t bother him. What bothered Steve was that _this_ was not Bucky’s normal disregard for Steve’s personal space, which was pretty much a null concept when it came to Bucky anyway. This was Bucky _scared_ , and _hurting_ , and there was nobody to punch to make it better.

Nobody was saying much of anything. Not even Tony, who was fiddling with his Starktab as if looking at Bucky’s scans enough would solve the problem.

A couple of hours later Clint was carefully setting them down in a field just outside of a small English village, and they all headed for the hatch.

“James,” Nat said, reaching for Bucky’s shoulder. “I should warn you. The woman we’re coming to see…she might remember you.”

“She’s like you?” Bucky asked, glancing at the cottage that Natasha had said was their destination. “A Widow? I thought you were the only one left.”

“Not exactly like me,” Natasha said with something wry and bitter in her smile. “I was used against normal people because my magic never presented. She was sent to infiltrate the most prestigious institute of magical learning in Britain, and then she came back and burned the Red Room to the ground.”

Bucky looked at her more carefully and then stepped away from Steve, straightening his back.

“Nat – if I was…if seeing me is going to be bringing back bad memories for her, we-“

“No! No, James, you…” she stepped closer and brought her hand to his cheek. “What we remember about the Soldier is that he was kind, when there was no reason or excuse for it. She’ll be happy to see you.”

“What was her name?” Steve asked, because he’d experienced the pain of Bucky not knowing his name, and wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

“Hermione,” Natasha said. “Her name is Hermione.”

 

 


End file.
